Patch News – May 2017

May was quite an eventful month, we had baking hot days, storms with very heavy rain, and cows that came and went again. Unfortunately the cows were in the field when we had a couple of days of really intense rain and they appeared to have decided our patch was the best place to gather. It’s been churned up really badly and although they’ve now been moved to another field it will take quite a while for the patch to recover. Wonky Wiltshire send me this photo that illustrates the problem well, it ripped an undercarriage leg clean out of his Hurricane.The cows left us their usual ‘presents’ but this time it covered a large area of the patch completely. Catapult King’s Speedy has to be landed at speed to avoid tip stalling and he picked the wrong area to slide through. Yuk! The normally polite Gentleman Jim commented that it was a crap landing! There were several new models that had their first flights during May, so I’ve got plenty to talk about. First up is Tony Neil’s new Tundra which is yet another model that’s produced by HobbyKing.He spotted the Tundras were in one of their sales at a knockdown price and immediately snapped one up. It’s a Plug’n’Fly one so comes complete with everything, a 3636-950Kv motor, a 40A esc, the prop, 6 servos, flaps, and even floats in case you want to try flying off water. Tony said assembling the undercarriage was the biggest job. Tundras are 1300mm (51”) span so a decent size, plenty of space for a variety of batteries, and they look like a lot of fun. I’ve only seen Tony have one flight so far but it looked good and performed really well.You can see some of that first flight in this month’s video at the end of Patch News.

Last month I featured Dougal Entendre’s new Ghost Rider 50 when he’d said he may change the motor as it sounded pretty rough. Well he’s now changed it for a Turnigy 3542/6 1000Kv but initially found it was very noisy, he reckoned it sounded like a 40 I/C engine!However, at the suggestion of 1066, he then tried it without the spinner and the problem was immediately solved. So if you have a noisy model try removing the spinner, it may just make the difference. Some of the cheap plastic ones can be well out of balance, it’s not just props that can produce vibration.

While I’m on the subject of Dougal, he has become the latest member of the Stool Club. He found this one kicking around his garage and said it’s years old and has become a bit stiff to unfold, or as he put it, ‘a nice firm stool’!That should get the comments flying again…

Basher Bob has been at it again. No, not mid-airs this time, but he did manage to knock the nose off his Wot-4 when he cartwheeled it on landing. I’d blame the state of the patch Basher.Fortunately it was a clean break so it was easily mended and soon flying again.

One day in May as I was driving down the track I spotted this in the field:I’ve seen  a few hares over the years but never a deer in almost 40 years of flying there.

Woody has bought himself a nice new Edge 540T. Rather like Tony’s Tundra, Woody spotted the Edge on sale at a knockdown price on the HobbyKing site and hit the Buy button. We’ll have no ‘Cor, look at that pile of dung’ comments thank you!It’s one of the larger EPP/light ply ones at 1430mm span and needs a 4 or 5 cell lipo, with Woody opting to use some 5 cell 4500mAh packs he already has. It comes as airframe only and Woody has fitted a Turnigy Aerodrive SK4250-500kv motor driving a 14×7 prop. The speed controller is an 80A Turnigy Plush and the servos are metal geared Corona DV339HVs. It looks like there’s plenty of room to squeeze the lipo in somewhere. And then there were two. Dougal did the first take-off and trimming as he owns an identical model and was happy to report that it was just about perfect. Woody took the controls after a couple of minutes and headed for the stratosphere as usual! Better safe than sorry Woody, three mistakes high is never a bad thing.

It’s just as well that he’s bought a new model, as Woody recently managed to pull the wings off his Ugly Stick at an altitude of about 200 feet. As you can imagine the end result wasn’t pretty but to be fair it really wasn’t Woody’s fault so I declined to take any photos.

Catapult King wasn’t so kind to me when I buried my Wingnetic the other day. I have to admit that it was totally my own fault, I got carried away with multiple twinkle rolls and I had trouble deciding quite when to release the aileron. When I eventually did, I pulled full up only to realise that the plane was inverted!It went in flat out from about 40 feet and I was amazed at how little damage there was. It was soon repaired and is now flying again…rather more slowly and carefully!

Most of you will know by now that Doreen and I flew to Stuttgart in Germany in mid-May to visit the Multiplex Airshow at Bruchsal. I won’t bore you all any more about it but if you’d like to see the official Multiplex video just CLICK HERE. The Squire snapped this photo of me in all the Multiplex clothing I bought at the show.I might look a prat but notice he also caught the club drunk in the background!

Some of us flew gliders from the lower field (to avoid the bullocks) one Friday afternoon when the weather was turning stormy. I took two photos, one facing south and the other facing north. The storm clouds provided a lot of lift and my glider soon became a tiny dot so I spun it back down to a more manageable height. I was aware that the transmitter was speaking my altitude but was too busy straining to see the dot to pay too much attention. When I landed I photographed the screen showing the maximum altitude reached.520 metres is 1706 feet, certainly the highest I’ve flown since I bought that system. By the way, as we are not in controlled airspace and the model is not a ‘large’ model I didn’t break any rules, we are not height restricted.

Terribull has been flying an uprated version of his Weekender recently having built a new wing for it.The original 3 channel version flew well enough but Terribull decided it would be even better with the full 4 channels so he built a new wing without any dihedral and added ailerons. The model flew perfectly well with the new wing but it looked a bit strange, or in Terry’s words ‘horrible’. Shouldn’t that have been ‘terrible’? Anyway, he built yet another wing, they only take a couple of days apparently, but this time he added ¼” dihedral under each tip.With this wing the model looks much better, flies extremely well, and Terribull declared it to be a success. He is now thinking of producing a few kits of the model so if you’d like to build one for yourself speak to Terribull.

Dougal sent me this pic he took of me and said it looks as if I’m holding the transmitter upside down. It’s the future Dougal, the Multiplex future! The new transmitters have ‘ IOAT (Integrated Optimised Antenna Technology) an integral aerial with enhanced radiation pattern, optimised for model control, double the signal density transmitted to the model, offering a significant enhancement in security.’Yes, I must admit they do look a bit odd at first but you soon get used to them. Captain Slow was obviously impressed by mine as he has now sold almost all of his Spektrum gear and bought a new Cockpit SX 9 identical to mine. It performs perfectly but unfortunately it refuses to accept a charge and has to be returned to Lindinger in Austria. OK, just to keep you Spektrum guys happy I’ll say it… Bloody Multiplex…!

Last month I included a photo of Cream Egg shaking my hand having passed his ‘A’ certificate. The actual certificate is normally presented by the Chairman at a club meeting but in this case some pillock (me) forgot to take the certificate along to the meeting. So, a little late and in the wrong place, here is Cream Egg being presented with his certificate at the field by Vice-Chairman Dougal Entendre.Well done Mike.

Gorgeous Gary has built a gorgeous new model, a Black Horse Midget Mustang. This is what the Black Horse website says about it: Modelled on one of the most famous post war racing aircraft, the Black Horse Midget Mustang EP will turn heads wherever she flies. That stunning red and yellow colour scheme is both pretty and functional by making visibility good at most attitudes. Black Horse also produce a larger version.It certainly looks fantastic, a really pretty little model. I emailed Gary to request details about the powertrain and the reply came back “Sat in 29 degrees centigrade with a cold beer, back Friday”! So I don’t have any details of the powertrain other than that it has an OS electric motor and flies on a 3 cell lipo. The model is 1000mm span so isn’t big and, as you’d expect from scale model of a racing aircraft, it’s quite quick. Sadly Gary’s turned out to be very twitchy and although I thought he’d got the better of it, the first flight ended in disaster when it was time to land. I hope he repairs it, the damage wasn’t too bad and it looked superb in the air as you can see in this month’s video.

Time for a couple of ‘golden oldie’ photos now, firstly our President Don Eades with what at the time was his latest pattern ship, and secondly OMG look at those shorts, it’s Stanley Knife! Dougal Entendre tried to enhance his prop hanging skills last weekend by adding an old helicopter gyro to his Hummer. He linked it to the ailerons with the idea that it would be one less thing to worry about when prop hanging but apparently 1066 said he thought Dougal was better without it!Nice neat wiring there Dougal. Personally I would have thought the way to go would be to add it to the rudder but with the gyro mounted so that it controlled the rudder when the model was vertical? I’ll have to think about how to do that, if I figure it out I might try it on my own Hummer. Watch this crash space.

The last new model that I spotted during May was Gentleman Jim’s extremely nice new Pepperpot, a 1245mm (49”) span sports model produced by Phoenix Models. This is from the Phoenix Model Products website: The Pepperpot is a 4/5 channel stylish electric power sports aerobatic model that has a spritely performance. With a typical 4/500w 3542 size motor and using 3S 22/2700mA lipos the Pepperpot is both a delight to fly and build and will attract complements on both fronts. The all wood easy build construction follows the now well proven path of other models in our range in that it incorporates a fully sheeted built-up wing with a comprehensive collection of cut part and accessories. Jim says it’s definitely a ‘builders’ model and that is just what Stan Yeo of Phoenix intended. Jim has fitted it with a 3542 1250Kv motor, a 60A ESC, 9×6 Prop and a 2200mAh 3 cell lipo. He has made a very nice job of both the build and the covering and has finished up with a very pretty model. I was asked to do the first flight and am happy to report that the model was one of those that immediately felt right. We took-off and landed several times while we played around with the rates and expo a bit and discovered that it uses very little power from the battery.It really is a nice flier, loads of power and fully aerobatic but equally happy stooging around at less than half throttle and flight times of around ten minutes are easy possible.

Now for a few assorted photos from Catapult King and Kryten, thanks chaps:

It was great to see the return to flying of Chris P Bacon following his recent triple heart bypass operation. Personally I didn’t realise he had one heart let alone three!Good to see you back Nigel.

Time for this month’s video:

Please watch the video full screen, it’s so much better with small models flying around. If the video above won’t play for you CLICK HERE

Did you hear about the airline pilot who bragged that when he was born he was offered the choice of either a large manhood or a fantastic memory? Apparently he can’t remember which one he chose…

Colin Cowplain